Bug
Bytes

The
sounds of crickets courting and flies flying familiar to many of us,
but
have you heard a rice weevil larva eating inside a wheat kernel, a
termite
cutting a piece of wood, or a grub chewing on a root? Modern
insect
detection and control technology makes use of these subtle signals,
sampled
below.

Most
of the sound files on this page were selected from noise-free
sections
of recorded signal, but you can hear some typical background noises
mixed
with insect sounds at I below. The
insect
sounds have higher frequencies and shorter durations that make them
relatively
easy to separate from background.

Richard
Mankin

Note:
This page contains links to about 70 sound ( or .wav) files, and accompanying information in
(.pdf)
and slide files. Some of the sounds are low in intensity, and it
may be necessary to turn up the speaker volume to hear them.
Also,
many sound players like to deemphasize low frequencies. If your
player
has an equalizer and you can't hear the sounds, turn up the frequencies between 600 and 1500 Hz.

A.
Stored Product Insect movement and feeding sounds recorded for insect
detection
and monitoring studies:(the
sound quality differences that you hear are caused by differences in
the
spectral ranges of the sensors).

B.4.c.and
B.4.d.
Two simultaneous recordings by Minling Zhang of a series
of (6) sound pulses recorded from microphones inserted into soil near a
white grub
(Phyllophaga). The series begins at ca. 8.8 s after
the beginning of each recording
and lasts for 1.5 s. Other sounds also are present in the
recordings. [769 kB, 16 s].
Additional information
in Zhang et al. (2003)

B.5. Euzophera
magnolialis Capps recorded in soil under magnolia tree.

recorded in soil
under an
oak tree using an accelerometer [489 kB, 9.8 s].

D.6.
Drywood termites (Isoptera: Kalotermitidae)

(possibly Cryptotermes
brevis (Walker) or Incisitermes snyderi (Light) in wooden
beam).
For more information about drywood termites see Thoms. 2000.
Use
of an acoustic emissions detector and intragallery injection of
spinosad
by pest control operators for remedial control of drywood termites
(Isoptera:
Kalotermitidae). Recorded by John
Rodgers
with an AED-2000 insect
detection
system. [160 kB, 10 s].

Compare with a second recording
from the same tree by John Rodgers using
an AED-2000 insect detection
system, filtering out low-frequency noise. [227 kB, 10 s].

[Note:
There
is a female mosquito buzzing in the foreground, and the higher-pitched
sound of the male swarm is in the background.]
Information about Aedes
taeniorynchus swarms is given in: Mankin (1994)
[1,609 kB]

F.1b. Aedes albopictus
(Asian tiger mosquito) female in flight. Note that the wingbeat
frequency is much lower than for the smaller male in F.1.c.

recorded by Everett
Foreman
with Bruel and Kjaer microphone [489 kB, 9.8 s].

F.1c. Aedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito) male in flight.

recorded by Everett
Foreman
with Bruel and Kjaer microphone [489 kB, 9.8 s]

I. Examples
to distinguish insect sounds from background noise:Not
all extraneous sounds can be distinguished from insects as easily as in
I.1-I7 below, but the human ear can be trained to distinguish the
typical
clicking and slipping noises of subterranean insects from the drones of
machinery or incidental wind noise. Here are some examples you
can
try for yourself.

I.1. Insect
sounds mixed with plane noise, recorded from underground microphone in
a field at Auburn, AL. [1.4kB, 30 s]